“Don’t you have an apple?” In a recent video posted on TikTok, Jordan Bardella asks for a fruit, cleans it conscientiously before biting into it with gusto. A few smiles and a wink at the camera later, the thirty-second sequence is complete. It has been viewed more than 4 million times to date, and it sums up the popularity enjoyed by the president of the National Rally on the social network of Chinese origin. Despite, therefore, the apparent futility of the scene.
What does this say, on the eve of a decisive second round of legislative elections? Tristan Boursier, doctor of political science and associate researcher at the Center for Political Research at Sciences Po, analyzes the reasons for Jordan Bardella’s success on the platform, which owes nothing to chance. It stems from a carefully considered strategy, and a relatively long-standing online presence of the extreme right.
L’Express: On X, TikTok or even YouTube, far-right content generates a lot of audience. Jordan Bardella, the RN leader, is the most followed French politician on the ultra-viral platform of Chinese origin. How can we explain that this political family is so powerful online?
Tristan Boursier: Traditionally, the far right is one of the first political forces, at least in France, to have mobilized online before social media, on websites or forums. This can simply be explained by the need to develop alternative channels on which to express oneself fully. Given the political ideas it defends, which still tended to be marginalized 20 years ago, the far right was generally absent from mainstream television channels. That’s just from a historical point of view.
Then, today, she has developed new online strategies, particularly in the way of creating content. This environment was first influenced by individuals like Dieudonné then Alain Soral, with long videos, a posture claimed as intellectual and an extremely sober editing facing the camera. A turning point took place around 2015, under the influence of the American alt-right, with much shorter videos, an epileptic editing with music, the mobilization of web culture too, with “memes”, references to manga as well as video games. Videographers like “Le Raptor” embody this transformation, which has generated more engagement on so-called “mainstream” networks. The latter was also one of the first to use humor as a mobilizing lever.
A humor that allowed for very violent remarks and made them more acceptable. It is both laughing at violence and a violence of laughter, a kind of imbrication between the two. Thanks to the trolling – a way of laughing by making believe that one does not really think what one says – this type of influencers made racist, homophobic or sexist remarks. It is obviously a thoughtful strategy, because the subjects discussed were recurrent and the people targeted were always the same.
Are these tricks used today by Jordan Bardella on TikTok, who also claims his past as a “gamer” whenever he can?
He is still a professional politician, so he must keep his distance from this far-right sphere of influence with its much more uninhibited speech. But it is a bit of a fool’s game, embodied by what is called the le dog whistle (Editor’s note: call of the foot). He has to show these people who watch these videos that he has heard them and at the same time not do it too openly, otherwise it could cost him his popularity, his credibility. So it’s not the same type of humor as the influencers mentioned.
For Jordan Bardella, it is mainly about making himself likeable, by putting himself in situations where he seems authentic. We have the impression of following his private life and we tend to forget his political program, his project. The goal is to arouse amusement – humor is in this a powerful parasocial link – but sometimes also indignation or anger. Because, in one minute, it is impossible to develop very clear ideas anyway. The left does the same thing, for example with Manon Aubry, but the program and ideas are often more put forward. Which ultimately generates fewer reactions, less engagement.
Emmanuel Macron, as a candidate in the presidential election in 2017, used this type of device: his teams and journalists followed him in intimate, personal, sometimes funny moments, like when he orders his “cordon bleu” in the canteen. What is different with Bardella?
Already, Jordan Bardella exploits social networks much more than Emmanuel Macron, in terms of number of videos and presence in general. He is on almost all platforms, from TikTok to LinkedIn. Furthermore, Emmanuel Macron came from nowhere, he had no base, no pre-existing online activist sphere, while Jordan Bardella has this galaxy of influencers already established for several years. This is undoubtedly why his videos have a stronger resonance than that of another politician arriving on another ideological segment where there would be no sphere of influence in place.
Does Jordan Bardella’s popularity on TikTok inevitably translate into votes?
This is the big question, because today we only have indirect evidence by correlating the youth vote, very present on this type of platform, and the Bardella vote in the European or legislative elections. I am currently conducting research where I interview young people who watch these videos directly to try to trace their path of politicization. To date – this obviously remains to be confirmed – it seems that these videos manage to capture young people who are not interested in politics. They therefore become politicized thanks to these videos which a priori are not political, but which little by little, via the play of algorithms, will encourage them to watch other videos which are more clearly political, such as those of far-right influencers.
This is something quite new. Before, political socialization was done within the framework of an associative commitment, family, sometimes unionism too. Social networks are now an important additional factor to take into account. And the more time spent on them increases, the more other sources of information used for political socialization tend to decrease.
Will the possible arrival of Jordan Bardella at Matignon reverse his online popularity?
It’s hard to say, we’re moving into political fiction here. On the one hand, we can remember that there is always a handicap in being in charge. It is towards power that all the anger and responsibility for what is wrong are transferred, on the networks or offline. We see it with the current majority and the government. If Jordan Bardella comes to power, I imagine that he will need influencers less. Which could backfire on him. Because this sphere has sometimes supported more radical candidates than him or Marine Le Pen, like Éric Zemmour. Finally, his opponents are increasingly using the same techniques. On the left, influencers are already using humor and short videos to mock their political opponents.
In an article published on the site The Conversationyou also mention the new favorite themes of the far right online, in order to reach more and more people. We find in particular antifeminism.
This anti-feminist discourse has indeed gained momentum and initial studies indicate that it would act as a gateway to a process of politicization towards the extreme right. Users who were exposed to anti-feminist content then went on to consult rather racist and then white supremacist content. Like a sort of gradation in the consumption of extremist content.
Several things can explain this: the higher proportion of young men compared to young women, ignoring inequalities that persist between the two sexes. By the greater presence of feminism also, in the mainstream media. On Netflix, series or films depict much more egalitarian visions of society. Among some influencers, the idea flourishes that we are in a post-feminist era, that there is no more inequality and that precisely, it would perhaps even be men who would be disadvantaged in society. Three years ago, an essayist who wrote a book on the cost of virility was ridiculed by many far-right influencers, with heavy attacks ad hominem.
Humor was once again mobilized, conveying misogynistic clichés, using the lexical field of mental illness, the so-called “hysteria” of women. All this discourse has taken up much more space, compared to racist or even conspiratorial ones. Perhaps, also, because the platforms are much more vigilant today on these subjects than before, as evidenced by the deletion of videos like some of the far-right influencer Julien Rochedy. However, this is only a hypothesis for the moment.
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